Thursday, August 25, 2011

The late William Ames Johnson, a highly decorated state trooper and former Green Beret in Vietnam, was not one to invite trouble. But every now and then, trouble found him. And when it did, Billy never backed down.
Back in September of 1987, Billy Johnson intercepted an FBI informant by the name of James “Whitey” Bulger at Logan Airport. The White Man, who was bound for Montreal with a ton of cash, got jammed up at the screening machines.
Billy was the trooper who answered a radio call and detained Whitey up against a terminal wall, while the FBI’s pet gangster peppered him with expletives.
Turns out, that wasn’t the first time Billy Johnson crossed paths with a thug who’d secured the care and protection of the FBI.
Mark Rossetti is Whitey Bulger redux. This reputed Mafia capo and alleged drug dealer, bank robber and extortionist has recently been unmasked as another “prized” FBI informant.
But in July 1979, when Mark Rossetti, Michael Rossetti and three other men jumped out of a car in East Boston and beat Billy Johnson with baseball bats, this capo was little more than an ambitious goon.
Johnson was off duty and driving his wife home from work when his car was cut off by five men who beat him nearly to death.
Billy identified Mark and Michael Rossetti, who were charged with assault and battery with intent to murder . . . and set free on $500 cash bail.
While Mark Rossetti was awaiting trial for the assault on Johnson, he was accused of being poised to enter into a drug deal with Bill Mc-Greal, a state police detective working undercover.
“This guy (Rossetti) was straight out of central casting,” recalled McGreal, who is now retired. “He says to us, ‘If something goes wrong . . . something is gonna go seriously wrong with youse guys.’ ”
Both Rossettis copped a plea in the Johnson beating, halting any future dealings with the undercover cop.
A dozen years later, McGreal would take an FBI special agent to a jail cell where one of McGreal’s informants hoped to trade his freedom by offering up Mark Rossetti.
“I’ll never forget what (the agent) told me,” McGreal said. “He says to me, ‘We decided to pass on Rossetti.’ ”
Much like the Whitey saga, it was a state police investigation that exposed Mark Rossetti’s cozy relationship with the Sons of Hoover.

What eats at Bill McGreal now is that the FBI would protect a reputed gangster who pummeled a fellow statie. “When you take on an informant, you always check their record,” McGreal said. “The FBI had to have seen the assault with intent to murder in Rossetti’s file.”
If they never bothered to ask Rossetti who he tried to kill, they were either incompetent, or arrogant.
Truth is, they were both.